Bowie’s ’Blackstar’ heading to #1 in UK, US

The UK is expected to farewell David Bowie by sending his Blackstar album to #1, while the album is also set to become his first chart-topping album in the United States.

In the UK, Blackstar sold 43,000 copies in the first 24 hours after his death was announced. It was at #1 in the midweek charts, with sales doubling to 86,687.The record, described by his long-time producer Tony Visconti as the icon’s “parting gift”, has topped the iTunes chart.

In Australia, the album is set for a Top 3 debut come Saturday, with TMN’s charts team predicting a #1 entrance.

In the meantime, his back catalogue is back in the UK charts as fans mourned, filling up more than half of the Top 40. The Best Of 1969/1974 is at #13, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust at #19 and Hunky Dory at #20. Best Of Bowie and Aladdin Sane are also in the Top 40, while a further seven albums are in the Top 100.

In the Singles Chart, Heroes returned at #25 (and looks like overtaking its original peak of #24), with Life On Mars at #34 and Starman at #35. Two others are just outside the Top 40, with Let’s Dance at #43 and Space Oddity at #48.

Next month’s BRIT awards next month will pay a tribute to what its chairman, Max Lousada, described as the “extraordinary life and work of one of our greatest icons”.

Bowie was a three-time BRITs winner. He was named Best British Male twice, in 1984 and 2014. He was also awarded the Outstanding Contribution to British Music in 1996. He performed twice at the BRITS, in 1996 with Pet Shop Boys and in 1999 with Placebo.

Spotify has reported that global streams of Bowie’s music were up by 2,822% since Monday – totalling more than 6.5 million listens. Life on Mars, from 1971’s Hunky Dory, posted the biggest jump with streams up 4,238%. It was followed by

Heroes from 1977 up 3,630% and Let’s Dance (1983) which increased by 3,942%. Two tracks from Blackstar, the title track and Lazarus grew, respectively, by 1,120% and 1,084%. The first four are in the Spotify Top 10.

It’s an apt farewell: back in 2003 Bowie predicted something like the streaming format, telling the New York Times that “Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity. The absolute transformation of everything that we ever thought about music will take place within 10 years, and nothing is going to be able to stop it.”

Twitter went into overdrive as well: more than 6.1m tweets about the singer have been sent since his death. Most were sent by those aged 35 or older, and 57% of them were male.

Blackstar is also heading to become Bowie’s first ever #1 on the Billboard 200. Billboard calculated that a “total equivalent album unit” figure that includes physical and digital albums, along with individual tracks and streams—“will be higher than 130,000 and should easily bump Adele’s 25 from the top slot (after seven weeks).”

So far Bowie’s highest US chart placing has been at #2 with 2013’s The Next Day and Station To Station in 1976 making it up to #3. He only topped the US Singles Chart twice, first with Fame (with John Lennon) in 1975, and then in 1983 with Let’s Dance. In the wake of his death, American fans are digitally grabbing Space Oddity, Under Pressure, Changes, Fame and Heroes.

In the meantime, the Music Of David Bowie tribute concert at Carnegie Hall in New York on March 31 has now become a memorial. Seven months in the planning, the original plan was for the likes of Visconti, Cyndi Lauper, The Roots and Perry Farrell merely to sing his songs. Now it’s become a major event with his close friends Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger and Elton John on the bill.

The 2,800 tickets, priced between $48 to $160, sold out in two hours. Scalpers are now demanding up to $3,680. There were plans to livestream the show but nothing is confirmed.